The picture of the Ninja Ultima on the box resembles a futuristic teleportation vortex.

The promise of tastes to come

Handy instructions are revealed rightaway

Used to the 70’s style blender I utilized in the Splash offices kitchen up until now, I expected this modern prototype to come with a set of instructions that would solicit ones use of a college degree, but to my relief, most of the instructing came in simple yet beautiful glossy pictures worked into the clever wrapping, instructions only briefly reiterated in a similarly succinct manual that took just minutes to acquire.

Tightly and safely wrapped for shipping

To graduate from the miraculously functional piece of antiquity - whose initial user was surely a housewife that lived in a tracked house, behind a white picket fence and who owned plastic covered furniture - to this powerhouse of a machine that, I have no doubt, could easily mulch the autumn leaves and twigs on this property, is akin to one upgrading from riding a tricycle to piloting a transformer.

Finally on our counter

I am elated at the sight of the design alone, as I walk the stairs down to the kitchen with the Ultima in my hands. I quickly set it up on the counter, and execute my first procedure out of the Ninja recipe book - the Peachy Cream smoothie. To be sacrificed, a half cup of peaches (humanely frozen), a half orange, a half banana, one tablespoon of hemp seeds and four ice cubes. “Place all subjects into the Single Serve Cup and process until smooth”, the instructions read in a tone that I chose to hear as Martha Stewart’s. The friendly ethnic girl on the recipe book cover seemed to support this air of benevolence that surrounded the rite of preparation. I too, gently guided my gullible ingredients into the plastic chamber like children to a playground. What happened next in the blender cup is unspeakable, and if the assertion that uncooked fruit lives is correct, the violent execution of my candid blender buddies must have come with no suffering at all, as the feral blades of the Single Cup spinner pulsed impassively, with the precise power of an insinkerator.

I mumbled a short, non denominational prayer and ran upstairs to the office with my botanical offering, but not before reading the health properties of the ingredients about to be consumed. “The Sunshine Pick-me-up” or “The Minty Cucumber Cooler” I would be heard announcing every new creation in the days to follow, like a palace porter calling out arrivers at the ball. Something about this formalism was also felt in the way the smoothies were received, with a sort of curious and tacit reverence to the new, extraterrestrial machinery that created them.

This mother-of-all-blenders comes with the specifications usually attributed to power tools found in your garden shed - 2.5 horse power motor with 24,000 rpm, the only blender with dual stage blending, total crushing power and high speed cyclonic blades with a wide range of speeds.

Ninja Ultima Single Serving Cups

The two sip and seal cups for on the go serving - out of which nothing leaks at all, truly make one think of the craftsmanship you’d find in a Mercedes.

We made snow from ice in a matter of seconds!

Blender made snow boy

The main 72 oz blender recipient can alternately aggregate an additional power blade that confers potency to the blending process when needed. With it, we obliterated ice into snow in a matter of seconds and proceeded to make a small Frosty Boy on the kitchen counter. The measurements inscribed on the side make it easy to appropriate portions without the use of additional kitchen gear. We are indeed very pleased with this blender and plan to make extensive use of everything it was created to produce.